a very short note on calling an ambulance as a queer parent

Well one might look at you strange, and wonder in what way you are actually connected to this child. Whether or not you had an affair with the person you are with at that time and are not a birth mother or perhaps not a true lesbian. Something definitely fishy going on. Not living all together in one place very bizarre. The place that she is registered, the legal guardian, the mother. What is her address, this is the only person who can be legally connected. They must switch with the other true parent who can stay in the room, who can qualify for a meal. The amazing food they offer—it must be rationed. I find myself explaining from time to time the constellation of our family, just to validate it for my kid and for my kid to hear me saying it.

I feel the same about their gender, though with less chances to validate this. Because I suppose there is “the” answer to the question .. boy or girl… i mean shouldnt they just cut to the chase and say, really, should say, penis or vulva. And then my kid could say vulva. But since its this same word for gender as it is for sex, it gets really confusing. And why then not just have a little write in box that say “genitalia” instead of gender or sex. And then you could write in how you call your genitalia. Or there could even be pictures.

but i get off on a tangential postgender utopian daydream. Instead I found myself on the phone saying “my kid cannot breathe.” boy or girl? pause. “girl.” and then looking over at my kid and swearing, really i swear it, they were barely focused on anything except breathing and yet they noticed. they heard me and it registered a kind of shock across their face, something minute in their eyes. That I had answered this way, “sold out,” acquiesced to the language of normativity, betrayed them, even, to this ridiculous system we find ourselves in. perhaps when it counted most? that look was the worst part.